Talk:War Storm/@comment-65.41.187.229-20190130161223
Aveyard really missed an oppertunity for an amazing series here. She pushed for a female protagonist so bad it just turned out to be very messy. In my personal opinion Cal should hae been the protagonist while Maven would be the antagonist. Here's why: We're talking about sibling rivalry here and it runs DEEP. Maven hated Cal for so much more than just Mare and Aveyard should have elaborated more on that. We're talking about a person who for all of his life has felt second best compared to Cal. Their father did not hide how much he loved and favored Cal however we can question if he even loved Maven to begin with. Cal and his dad had a very special bond and it helped that he was the son of the woman that he loved. The king did not love Elara he only married her because he had to so the connection he should have had with Maven never existed. Not only that, Maven probably never felt like he was good enough. In their society the silvers valued strength and power over anything else. Unlike Cal, Maven was not skilled with war or battle strategy. He shined when it came to politics but at the time that didn't matter to much. For years his resentment towards Cal has been building up and I can fully understand why he acted the way he did. In Mavens mind it was "Cal and Cal's younger brother." With Cal, he could be considered the "gifted son." Or the prodigy may be the better word. However we can't hate him for that. Cal can't help how their father decided to treat him vs how he treated Maven. In fact he was never made aware of how much Maven had been hurting until the night where aven and Elara made their move. Cal loved Maven and he is truly a good person however he has his faults, as anyone would. Throughout the series he could have learned to grow from them. Protagonist vs Antagonist, Cal vs Maven, Naive vs Jealousy. I like these two as the protagonoist vs antagonist better because both of them fell victim in someway. What Aveyard gave us was her trying to make clear who the good guys were vs the bad guys but it isn't always "black and white" and with Cal and Maven as the main protagonist and antagonist it makes it even harder to label them off as such because there's so many grey areas. Life isn't always in favor with you and Cal and Maven would have been great ways to teach that lesson as well as the lesson everything is not as it seems. What Mare had against Maven and Cal was not enough for them to have so much conflict. Everything between the Calore brothers and Mare felt surface level and I am still confused as to why she was even the main character. For the story and backgrounds Aveyard has created, Mare as the main character just did not fit. Mare was just the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae. Some people eat it, some don't and just push it to the side but the cherry is really just there for decoration. You could deal without it. She was just a very small situation to a huge problem.